Set Me Free
by Clarenova
Summary: In the dark, nobeast can hear you scream. In our dark, no one cares you die. In your dark, nobeast knows you never lived in the first place.
1. Part One

::Set Me Free:: 

Disclaimer: Ne. 

A/N: This is going to be a sort of collage-ish bit of collected work about, well, I do not want to give it away, but let's just say that if you look at WRC, TYATO and CA, you realize I write only one species in Redwall, don't you? 

*__

_Set me free. Set us free_

I waited, ignoring the petrified silence of the night air. It was a never-ending cycle. I knew that. It could not be any other way. Vermin came, vermin went, we came, we went, too. 

It never stopped. It never changed. Embedded as it was in the rounds of the moon and sun, punctuated into the very existence of Mossflower, burned into our souls; hearts; livelihood. Our very tangible forms and created bodies, it lay there, like an ugly scar, never to be removed. 

_What about our souls, then?_

It slept there too, usually dormant in the face of all we went through. It changes with the years, but never drastically. It could not be changed in that manner, even if all of us tried. It could never truly hibernate forever, even with the most evenly tempered of us all.__

_It affects us all. It is a fire unquenchable. It is a curse, and a lifeline. Our duty._

Sparks of it escaped wherever we went. Inflamed tempers, recklessness, boldness, flippant attitudes and a general sense of either aloofness or a masterful disguise of cheerful, naive foolishness. 

_It became us. We became it._

Free us from it. Free me from it. It can never be. I can never be. Never. Never ever. They say we are the protectors. They call us brave, honourable and dauntless. They will never know. What daunts us is ourselves. Faced with peril, faced with death. Faced with a prison we never knew existed in the first place. Bound by duty. Bound by fate. Bound by ourselves, never to let what we truly are ever free. 

Some of them fear us. Say that we laugh at death. Lies. Lies made by us. Lies we never wanted. We do not laugh at death. Death laughs at us. We kill to live, and yet at the same time, we live to kill. 

_Our ever ironic existence._

Will they ever open their eyes? Will they ever see the blades that each and every one of us hold as individual blades? Can they not see that each of us is held to their weapon, and all of our arms form one entity: Truth. Honour. Disgrace. Darkness. Death. Duty. Severing us off from the rest of them. From them all. From ourselves. Will they never open their eyes? Will they never see past the facade we are forced to put up, so as not to fall into the black pit of despair and realization? Can they not let accept that we will never be who we really are? 

_Set me free. Set us free._

Let us out. 

Let us go. 

Let us leave these shores. 

Let us leave Salamandastron. 

Let us leave this all behind. 

Let us truly be hares. 

Or will you all savour your peace, savour it too much to realize the true sacrifice behind it? Each and every one of us would gladly die without resistance under an enemy blade to free any other one of us from this life. Cowardice. We hate it. Yet we love it. 

Just let us go. 

Set us free. 

* 

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark.___

_No one can see you cry.___

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart.___

_No one can feel you die._

Heart and mind numbing. All encompassing. A life that exists without reason or time. A life that goes every on and on, dying in the evanescence of thought and cultivation of mind. You spend so much wasted time, thinking and pondering on how to go about living, that in the end, you never live at all.__

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark.___

_No one can see you cry.___

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart.___

_No one can feel you die._

It is the pondering and amazement, then, that leads us, each and every one of us, to discover our gory fates and endings? Our beginnings in blood and our endings in blades, cut, shattered and scattered upon the waves. Our reflections shine in the clear waters: Nothing but shells, hollow houses for something that died the day it was born. 

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark.___

_No one can see you cry.___

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart.___

_No one can feel you die._

Have any one of us ever truly felt alive? Maybe and no. Those younger, youngest, oblivious and free, untainted yet by the truth that all of us draw away from them. It is death, for death, to death, because of death you live. But they do not know that. Most of the older hares believe they do not have to, either.__

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark.___

_No one can see you cry.___

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart.___

_No one can feel you die._

In our eternal trinity of honour, life and death, we left out purpose. Purpose was left to wither and die, shriveled and unbecoming, echoes of what we could have been. Helpless to do aught but watch, we live on. But we are already dead. 

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark._

_No one can see you cry._

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart._

_No one can feel you die._

And somewhere, somehow, on a starry dark night out in the open on a patrol somewhere, some poor young leveret will turn in his or her sleep and dream. They will dream of honour, glory, peace and war. They will think of battles, gore, abbey's and calm. Then they will wonder, in their silent, subconscious thoughts: Why? Why us? Why not some otherbeast, somewhere else, not us? Why are we tied to the doom, forever mere sentinels of the shore? Why can we not be more than this? More than our deaths that were entrusted upon our lives from the beginnings of time? 

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark._

_No one can see you cry._

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart._

_No one can feel you die._

Then in that black, dormant night, the fire is awoken. And they realize. 

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark._

_No one can see you cry._

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart._

_No one can feel you die._

In our dark, in our death, in our torture and our shining night. In our lives, in our deaths, in our eyes. In the night. In the dark. In our plane of existance. 

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark._

_No one can see you cry._

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart._

_No one can feel you die._

They realize. They see. They comprehend. And they do not wish to believe. They will never be young again when they discover. 

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark._

_No one can see you cry._

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart._

_No one can feel you die._

**In our dark, nobeast can hear you scream.**

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark._

_No one can see you cry._

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart._

_No one can feel you die._

**In our dark, nobeast can see you cry.**

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark._

_No one can see you cry._

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart._

_No one can feel you die._

**In our dark, nobeast can feel you hurt.**

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark._

_No one can see you cry._

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart._

_No one can feel you die._

**In our dark, nobeast can hear you scream.**

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark._

_No one can see you cry._

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart._

_No one can feel you die._

**In our dark, nobeast can touch your soul.**

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark._

_No one can see you cry._

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart._

_No one can feel you die._

**In our dark, nobeast can tell your lies.**

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark._

_No one can see you cry._

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart._

_No one can feel you die._

_In our dark, nobeast taste your tears._

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark._

_No one can see you cry._

**No one can feel you ripping out your heart.**

_No one can feel you die._

_In our dark, nobeast can smell you fear._

_No one can hear you screaming in the dark._

_No one can see you cry._

_No one can feel you ripping out your heart._

_No one can feel you die._

**In _our_ dark...**

**Nobeast will care you died.**   
  
  



	2. Part Two

::Part two:: 

Disclaimer: Ne. 

A/N: Just another snippet. 

* 

Anger. The one thing that sets us apart from the rest of them. The screaming that we do in our lives is never heard. The sobs are never seen. And so what becomes of anger? Hidden. Festering in the darkness, wildest of pits, boiling over until it finally finds release. When battle comes, and the night and blood hide the sight from all innocent eyes, fury is at last released. It wars in a megalomaniac sense of pride and foolish petulance, demanding attention and rapture in the most violent of ways. 

A feral grin, we soon realized, is all that we would ever need. Was all that we would. They would fear us and cower; run into their hovels and tremble as the earth sang its lament about them. But we will not. Because we would not. The feeling was dormant, but it never woke, save in battle and fear. 

Anger. 

Would you fear us? 

I firstly think we fear ourselves. The song of the sword sings with alarming clarity, doubtlessly it calls to us. Drawing us into the pit that we always fall into. Falling forever. You never realize how deep it really goes until you hit the bottom. That is when we scream. We shriek, thrashing in final rapture and hate and utter fury. Destroyed by what we were, writhing in eternal agony. Pain. Anger. Murder. The darkness takes over our senses - sense honed to kill - and the screaming only grows louder. The bare rock floor is covered with blood, crimson in our defeat, but we do not die. We are not allowed to die. We never die. We are living and undead, but we never fade. Not when the screaming always sounds in the darkness. Not when the darkness still exists.   
  



	3. Part Three

::Set Me Free, Part II:: 

Disclaimer: I am but a pawn. 

A/N: More snippets. 

* 

Sometimes we hear music. Music has always touched our souls, or at least a part of us that has hidden, and maybe cannot be found. Some part of us that speaks of compassion and mercy, a part of us we are taught to honour and work hard to build upon, but somehow is only distantly attached to our daily lives. Music. A sweet note played on the air, whether by flute or harp or lute, has always struck us as a sad, sad thing. Sometimes we would gather in the halls, play soft songs through the night. Innocent tunes that drifted past each of us, reminding us of what we have become. Sometimes our voices join the melody, accompanying the harmony. 

To us, it has ever sounded tainted, like a scar burned onto pale skin, a fiery brand that we cannot remove. Sometimes the younger leverets continue singing, their voices different from ours. So much sweeter, so much smoother. Without the harsh acknowledgement of life, they continue singing, but slowly, inevitably, each one drops out as the seasons pass. 

Not many hares like to sing. We make excuses, saying our voices to rough, or our music sense too amateur, but in reality, music and song have always been subjects we felt wary of. 

Song can speak words where words are best left unsaid. Music can compose melodies that stir souls and awaken nightmares. Things that are best left to imagination, and in some cases experience. There is no need to add any more sorrow into a world already filled with the inner taintings of hate and agony and the external factors of death and blood. There is no need, and we have ever been conscious of that. 

Sometimes we watch others sing. They sing in ways we can never hope to sing. They sing for joy, for the experience of hearing clear sound on frigid air, laughing the winter away and welcoming the spring. We sing to acknowledge death, chase each summer into each autumn, for release. In sombre, macabre ways, those innocents compliment ours. But our systems are different, and no other creature can change them. For each season we have a song, a song of blades, a song of death, a song of peace, a song of hate. They, they are not like us. They have songs regardless of season, songs of joy, songs of mercy, songs of happiness. They are so, so unlike us that we cannot begin to comprehend how they manage to live their lives, devoid of the fear of ignorance. 

We are hypocrites. We speak words when we say they are best left to the torment of silence, we kill when we say we must show mercy. But we are here to balance, to balance chaotic evil with another kind of evil, an evil working for designs only debatable by those to control the fates. 

They never thought we could sing songs of death. 


End file.
